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Source: ONE News -
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The top of the country was hit by a massive power outage on
Friday morning, affecting around 280,000 customers
The whole of the North Shore and Waitakere City and parts of Manukau were all without power. Parts of Whangarei were also affected.
Transpower says the outage, affecting everything north of the Harbour Bridge was due to a line fault.
They say the problem was caused when a circuit on its Otahuhu to Henderson 220kv feeder line tripped at 8am, while the second circuit was down for maintenance.
That line was then brought back on to restore power.
Transpower says most areas affected had their power restored at around 9:30am.
They expect areas still without power should expect it back on soon.
Transpower say that their investigations have found that a forklift carrying a container hit the line near Otahuhu.
In Whangarei, District Council spokeswoman Ann Midson says there's no power at all in the city.
Traffic lights are out, and shops and petrol stations are shut.
Midson says the council's doing what it can to assess the situation.
Northland's Fire Service is advising residents to switch off all stand-by appliances at the wall.
They say a possible sudden power surge when the power's turned on could cause fires in appliances like televisions and computers.
The power outage is also causing headaches for the High Court and District Court in Whangarei.
Its computer system is down, meaning no cases can be processed at the moment.
A court spokeswoman says anyone scheduled to appear today should still turn up.
Traffic lights were affected in many areas by the outage,
causing havoc on the roads during peak hour traffic.
